2 hours ago, IanSolo_FFG said:

maybe you could impose that difficulty level on yourself by playing thematic open groups rather than optimal open groups.

This is what I do. e.g. I won't bring Royal Guards to most missions as it doesn't seem thematic for them to be there.

I also try to let the initial and reserved groups dictate the open groups I bring. No merc groups? Then I probably won't bring any (although I may still bring Tuskens to a desert map or a wampa to a snow map for thematic reasons). A bunch of stormies? I'll bring more stormies of different types.

This doesn't always work (esp. with low threat level), but it's fun to try.

@machfalcon I think that I pretty much agree with you completely, and it's a really fine line to try and walk. Like you I have to most fun when I'm playing competitively, but I've run into the same issue where it doesn't matter how much fun a game is if nobody will play it with you

I've played through two campaigns and two mini-campaigns against a friend of mine with one of us controlling four heroes. We switch sides, but I tend to win most of the missions in either case (probably because I play by myself as well, so I've had a fair bit more practice). He says he doesn't want me to ever go easy on him (and in the past has actually called me out when he though I was making a sub-optimal move) but there comes a point where you can only lose so much before it stops being as much fun.

Our last campaign was Jabba's, and I played the rebels. We were pretty even early on (I think we were 3-3 at one point) but once I got my weapons and synergies going it became all but impossible for him to keep anything on the board. (Side note: Shyla's ridiculous cleave coupled with Onar's massive single target damage can be absurdly strong). I swept the last bunch of missions, and although he didn't complain or anything I could tell that it was getting to him. We've got HotE now, but to be honest I'm a little wary about broaching the idea of another campaign.

By contrast, I'm also still playing as one of four rebels in the first core box campaign that we started a few years ago now. The imperial smoked us through the first five or six missions before we won one (none of us really knew how to play) and built up a pretty solid XP and agenda card advantage. When we play that campaign now, though, I find it to be a lot of fun. We're still pretty likely to lose (our Imp has some solid reward cards) but I actually find it way more fun to be on the losing side of a snowball - you can still go all out but you don't need to worry about grinding anybody down while you do it.

But as a whole, neither of the above situations really has anything to do with any inherent balance issues in IA (both are about player skill) but they do illustrate how hard it is to balance a game like this in a way that works for all groups. And that's not even talking about the fact that a few good early die rolls for either side can completely swing the mission. Frankly I'm impressed that most of the missions work as well as they do.

9 hours ago, thestag said:

This is what I do. e.g. I won't bring Royal Guards to most missions as it doesn't seem thematic for them to be there.

I also try to let the initial and reserved groups dictate the open groups I bring. No merc groups? Then I probably won't bring any (although I may still bring Tuskens to a desert map or a wampa to a snow map for thematic reasons). A bunch of stormies? I'll bring more stormies of different types.

This doesn't always work (esp. with low threat level), but it's fun to try.

Exactly! Royal guards also don't show up that often in my games, but when they do, most of the time the rebel players know that something big will show up soon (Like when I can afford to bring Vader or RGC or when they are embedded in a mission). I think it can create some tension and drama up to a point where you can play mind games. You bring Royal guards in a mission. Who's going to show up, Vader, RGC, Palpatine, maybe none of them after all? But I don't see them entering a cantina to chase rebels, that is stormtrooper stuff.

For the HotE campaign I can imagine that I would use the ISB infiltrators a lot. Coruscant is their playground after all!

For sure, if you own everything you should have enough possibilities for open groups to not only have viable or thematic lists, but also there are usually viable and thematic lists.

I tend to stay thematic too, to the point that when I got a little too tryhard on the finale by bringing in a nexu and Hired Guns group, my players noticed and commented on how weird it was for them to be in the current setting.

@manatee_x , I think the "groupthink" of the Rebels can sometimes be an advantage, but it can also split the rebels motivations a bit. By having a single player control all 4 heroes, I could see how there could be some balance issues. For example, one of the Empire's biggest advantages is how efficient it can be- before the campaign even begins, the Empire can choose agenda sets and a class deck that compliment each other, and during the campaign they can add in open groups that work well with their other cards. A smart Imperial player works like a well oiled machine. Meanwhile, typical Rebel players often make what they see as the best upgrades for their character, but not necessarily for the group itself. Thus, while we upgrade at roughly the same rate, I often notice that I do poorly as the Empire early in the campaign, but I'm much more brutally winning matches by the time the endgame gets near.

A Rebel player controlling all four rebel heroes, though, would be much more likely to think of how each hero could benefit to the group, rather than how each hero could improve itself. You even mention the word "synergies", which I think is a great way to describe how a Rebel group would ideally (though not always realistically) work. So, not sure if it's fair to say it's a balance issue or not, but rather the game would interpret your style as simply a very high level of Rebel play.

Also, could explain why you're having more fun with your four player experience.

Also, I totally agree- if a snowball has to happen, I'd rather be the one taking the hits than the one dealing them. I have a guilty conscience, and don't mind being the underdog.

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@manatee_x , I think the "groupthink" of the Rebels can sometimes be an advantage, but it can also split the rebels motivations a bit. By having a single player control all 4 heroes, I could see how there could be some balance issues.

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A Rebel player controlling all four rebel heroes, though, would be much more likely to think of how each hero could benefit to the group, rather than how each hero could improve itself. You even mention the word "synergies", which I think is a great way to describe how a Rebel group would ideally (though not always realistically) work.

@subtrendy2 I think you might be on to something here, and spending credits/XP would be another example of this. If you've got Gideon in your group of four you can realistically go to the end of the campaign without buying him anything, but if he's somebody's only character then you almost need to buy him a "pity" item or two just so that that player doesn't miss out on that entire aspect of the game. XP would be similar - it's easier to save up for that nasty 4XP skill as a first buy when you can have fun buying things for three other characters in the interim.

And to be honest, this is also probably where all my solo playing has the biggest effect. My opponent is tactically very good during a mission (or at the very least I never notice him making any mistakes) but his chief complaint is that I always know which weapons to buy for which characters and how to spend their XP to make them all fit together. And it's only because I've tried so many combinations of heroes/items, and after a while you can start to see which ones work well together and which ones don't.

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Also, could explain why you're having more fun with your four player experience.

I'd almost say I've having fun with that campaign despite it being a four-player experience rather than because of it . The part I really like is the fact that, as we're the side at a disadvantage, we can really go all out and not feel even a little bit bad about it. I will admit that it's also nice to be "part of a team", as celebrating a lucky roll with three other people feels good (whereas celebrating a lucky roll by yourself feels like gloating).

At the same time it suffers from some of the things I think we talked about in another thread a while back, namely that because the rest of my team is relatively new to the game I always feel like I have to consciously try not to be an alpha gamer (which in turn means letting some... less that ideal moves go through).

I still think that the ideal might be two experienced rebels (controlling 4 heroes) against an experienced imperial, but I've never actually played that way so I can't say for sure. So really what I need is for one of you fine forum folks to move up to Halifax. Anyone interested?

just want to drop in and say the best way to balance a campaign game is arbitrary handicaps.

you want an exciting fun game with an unpredictable ending right? campaign is not a competitive exprince. so arbitrary handicaps where the losing side gets more oomph next game are a great way to do this. it's been so long since I played campaign I need to re read the rules to come up with a good suggestion.

10 hours ago, TylerTT said:

just want to drop in and say the best way to balance a campaign game is arbitrary handicaps.

you want an exciting fun game with an unpredictable ending right? campaign is not a competitive exprince. so arbitrary handicaps where the losing side gets more oomph next game are a great way to do this. it's been so long since I played campaign I need to re read the rules to come up with a good suggestion.

Problem with this is that there would be little reward for winning until the finale.

When I was on swim team, at practice we'd have a practice relay where the team in first place would have to swim Butterfly (a pretty fast, but somewhat difficult stroke) while the team currently in second at the lap would have to swim front crawl (probably the fastest and most effortless stroke). Obviously, a strategy emerged to try to stay as closely behind in second as possible, then surge ahead on the final lap. What actually happened would be that both teams would slow down to almost nothing, trying to "out second" the other team. I'd hate to see IA's campaign scene devolve to that, with both sides trying to lose by as little possible.

Spoiler for HotE

42 minutes ago, subtrendy2 said:

Problem with this is that there would be little reward for winning until the finale.

We've implemented a system where both sides get equal rewards, unless one side wins a lot in a row in which case the side that's doing worse gets some catch-up rewards. The motivation to win is still there even without a persistent reward (people tend to want to win when they play games ), and once one side has won 3 in a row they tend to agree that it would be nice to give the losing side a little help.

Then if one side is ahead in rewards (because of the catch-up system) by the time we get to the finale, we even it out so that no one has an incentive to lose the games leading up to the finale.

This does have the effect of encouraging the Rebels to pick up every crate (because that will have the most long-term benefit), but since they know that they'll be compensated if they get too far behind, the desire to win the mission usually overcomes that temptation.

1 hour ago, subtrendy2 said:

When I was on swim team, at practice we'd have a practice relay where the team in first place would have to swim Butterfly (a pretty fast, but somewhat difficult stroke) while the team currently in second at the lap would have to swim front crawl (probably the fastest and most effortless stroke). Obviously, a strategy emerged to try to stay as closely behind in second as possible, then surge ahead on the final lap. What actually happened would be that both teams would slow down to almost nothing, trying to "out second" the other team. I'd hate to see IA's campaign scene devolve to that, with both sides trying to lose by as little possible.

This is hilarious . Your poor coach.

Great thread!

I've noticed a few things after playing all of the campaigns so far (we just started HotE this week):

• When the Imperial player is only doing the most "game-y" or competitive moves and plays, with the result that the Rebels are losing several missions in a row, that sucks.
• It seems from our experience that the Rebels usually start out very weak. It takes them 2 attacks to kill a regular Stormtrooper, for example. But we've also found that often, by the end of the campaign, they're steam-rolling anything that the empire can throw at them. In other words, Swing Happens. See below for an example. I've found it to be true in both the Hoth and Jabba campaigns. Rebels won both of those campaigns, even though they started out the first half of both campaigns with a pretty bad win-loss record.
• When I notice that I'm winning a bit too often as the Imperial player, I then impose an artificial handicap on myself. Rather than intentionally making sub-optimal moves (which my players almost always recognize), I now just bring some sub-optimal deployment groups. For example, if the Rebels have someone with excellent burst-damage then I'll spend 8 Threat on an elite E-Web, knowing that it'll be scary to them, but also knowing that they'll therefore likely one-shot it with their big attacker, thereby gaining an advantage for that round.
• Hired Guns are annoying. 4 Threat for 4 attacks, especially in the beginning of the campaign, is insane. Use with care...or to catch up when the Rebels start to get too far ahead.
• IMHO, it's probably better for the Rebels to buy more modifications and less weapons from the Tier 1 deck. You will certainly want to replace your starter and Tier 1 weapons as you progress through the campaign, but you'll still be using those modifications (often to greater effect, btw!) in the finale. Don't think just 1 or 2 missions ahead...adopt a long-view strategy for character build and item purchases. I usually buy a 1 XP character card and then save up for one of my good 3 or 4 XP cards, which really enables my character to shine. After that, things really start to hum. But if, on the other hand, I was thinking, "I need to buy SOMETHING because I suck right now" then I'll never get to the strongest upgrades, and so I'll actually end up handicapping myself by the end. That's been my experience, anyway. YMMV.

As an example of "Swing Happens," I remember in our Hoth campaign, we were 1-4 or something. We were getting pretty discouraged; as a competitive skirmish player, I was starting to get annoyed, actually, because I knew that we were making optimal (or at least mostly optimal) moves, but we still couldn't win, because the Imperial player was "gaming the mission" rather than trying to defeat us. But then everything changed: we managed to pull a Chance Cube from the search deck, and after the mission we rolled well to get the extra credits from it. Then while shopping we just happened to draw the DXR-6 blaster (1000 credits, Red/Red with +6 Accuracy) and could exactly afford it by selling Mak's current blaster. After that, the momentum swung huge. Now, rather than taking 3-4 attacks to kill something, we were needing 2. Then Biv got his armor. Then Mak got "No Escape" (!!!), and so on. In the final mission, Mak was disintegrating anything that he decided to attack. So yeah...if you're a Rebel player and you lose a few of the initial missions, don't give up: if you build your characters well and make good buying decisions, you'll catch up.